Abstract:
The research focuses on the effectiveness of Polokwane Local Municipality to provide basic
infrastructure services, adherence to project management principles and the involvement of
communities in project implementation. Provision of basic infrastructure project has always
been a challenge to local government. Polokwane Municipality as part of local government is
mandated to fulfil constitutional obligations to ensure that provision of sustainable, effective
and efficient municipal services to the communities, while promoting social and economical
development.
Quantitative research methodology was used in this research; the primary source was the
questionnaire while the secondary sources include books, journals, dissertations and
reports. The population in the study include community members, ward committee members
or councillors, managers and technicians of the Polokwane municipal area.
The findings revealed that the municipality is performing well in project scope management.
Other project knowledge area such as project time management, project quality
management, project human resource and project communication management requires
more attention as they are not performing well. Project cost management is perceived to be
performing well from the community and councillors side while officials see it differently.
The research recommends that the municipality should ensure that the community members
are involved during the project implementation. It further recommend that the municipality
should implement cost recovery, develop policies to deal with quality management, train
officials, instil project ownership to the communities and do proper project planning analysis
before project implementation.
